Devotion (31 page)

They all stared at Maria.

Gertrude moved closer. "If he's to be
took
off to the home I reckon it don't matter wot he or his chambers look like."

"Have we time—"

"
Ye'll
just,
have to stall her, lass."

"How does one stall the Duchess of Salterdon?"

"I reckon you could do it if anyone could."

"He may resist again."

"Somehow I don't think so, not after
catchin
' the look on his face when you to!' him that his grandmother was about to put him away. Went white as chalk, he did."

She tried to think, realizing she had been too carried away with anger to acknowledge anything but her own wounded feelings and disappointment. Yes, perhaps she
had
noticed, just that flicker of fear that had flashed
from those normally lifeless gray eyes. The memory of it made her queasy.

"Yes," Maria said softly. "I'll try and stall her."

With a smile, Gertrude clapped her hands. "To it, ladies, and be quick about it."

Molly stepped forward and pointed to one eye that was fast becoming black and blue. "You expect me to go back in there after this?"

"It ain't
no
more'n
ye've
come
draggin
' in with after a night spent down at Bill and Beaver's Tavern on a Saturday
evenin
'. Now get to it afore I blacken the other eye."

With that, the group marched into the dragon's lair, clutching their brooms and dust pails as if they were weapons and shields. Maria closed her eyes and waited for the explosion, the shrieks, the servants to come flooding back into the corridor with fear in their eyes—the same fear that had riveted her motionless a few short minutes before.

They did not.

Still she waited, unable to move, to breathe, the memory of those last few minutes bringing a hot flush to her cheeks.
Silly, naive, ignorant ninny.
After administering her brother Paul for two years, listening to his confidence about unfulfilled dreams and fantasies, she should have realized Salterdon's anger and lack of confidence stemmed from more than his inability to walk.

But why, she wondered, would that rouse now to so trouble him?

"Miss Ashton."

Blinking, she looked around at the duchess.

"I will see my grandson now."

"No."

"I beg your pardon?"

"He's . . . not ready."

"But you said—"

'There were a few last-minute preparations to make— Gertrude is overly thorough, I think . . ."

The duchess stepped closer, so close Maria could clearly see the gold flakes sprinkled through the dowager's eyes—just like her grandson's. It
was
his eyes staring back at her, their humanness masked by the steel curtain of aristocracy.

The door opened in that moment and Gertrude stepped out. She looked at Maria, then at the duchess. "His Grace is ready to see
ya
now."

"Is he?" the duchess replied with a lift of one eyebrow, a sideways glance at Maria,
then
a curl of her lip. She waited until Gertrude stepped aside,
then
moved into her grandson's chamber.

Maria followed at a respectable distance, afraid to look, to breathe, finding the strength to remain standing only as Gertrude moved up beside her. Only then did she focus on Salterdon.

"Cleans up right nice, don't he?" Gertrude whispered. "Thought he was
gonna
use that damned razor on me own bloody throat afore I was finished
shavin
' him. Alls we got to do now is to convince him to let us cut his hair."

"I've grown quite fond of his hair," she heard herself murmur in reply, her gaze still locked on her charge where he reposed in a high-backed chair before the fire, his face as fine-honed and strong as chiseled marble in the dancing light. He had never looked so . . . handsome.
So distinguished.
So . . . arrogantly self-confident—hardly the same man who, moments before, had purposefully planted her hand between his legs and called her a whore.

She was not a whore,
damn him.
She was not . . . but for that instant, that very moment his body heat and the reaction from the contact of her hand on his crotch had sluiced up her arm to her brain . . . she had felt like one . . . she still did—God help her.

"I dressed him in his finest,
o'course
. Always liked the threads, he did. Spent a fortune on London tailors,
havin
' his clothes brought all the way from China. Looks right
commandin
' in '
em
, don't he?"

The Duchess of Salterdon stopped before her grandson's chair. They regarded one another silently before he said dryly, "Forgive me for not standing,
Your
Grace. You do understand . . ."

"Of course.
What I don't understand is your anger toward me."

He took a moment to reply. To someone else, he might have appeared simply aloof, mildly bored by the conversation he would rather not be having. He was not, of course.

He was concentrating, mentally rehearsing,
repeating
the words over and over in his mind until he was certain he could say them coherently and distinctly. As Maria watched him, forgetting to breathe, her body turning rigid as granite, she recalled again last evening—those
final
hours after he had played Bach's
Mass in B Minor
and before the first streaks of pale sun had broken through the horizon's foggy barrier—when he had read to her from
The Vicar of Wakefield,
stumbling over words, cursing his ineptitude, trying again and again until his body became wet with sweat, until the words flowed freely as water from his tongue. She had buried her face in her hands and wept, and laughed, and wept again.

Watching him now, recognizing the tension in his shoulders, the working of his jaw, the manner in which he gripped the chair arms with his hands, she thought to herself,
Slowly
. Carefully,
Your
Grace. You needn't rush it. It will all come back if you simply relax and allow
it ..
.
and
I didn't mean the terrible things I said earlier. Forgive me, forgive me,
forgive
me.

Gertrude took her arm and nudged her into the hallway, shutting the door and closing off the image of Salterdon being offered a drink by the duchess's attendant. Her heart skipped a beat, but as she opened her mouth to protest, Gertrude shook her head and clucked.

"He'll do just fine, love. Leave it alone."

"He has trouble yet holding a glass, Gertrude. What if he drops it? He would be horribly humiliated, and—"

Gertrude forced her down into a chair and proceeded to rectify the damage caused to her hair by her earlier tussle with Salterdon. "Why should you care?" the servant asked nonchalantly. "
Ye've
made it
more'n
clear wot
ya
think about him. Called him a sewer rat—"

"I didn't!" she cried, and twisted around to face her
friend.
"I said I wished he would
rot
like a sewer rat."

"Right.
So
ya
did. But
ya
can't hardly
deny that
ya
did say that
ya
didn't care for him much, and that he deserved to be sent off to a place where folk howl like maniacs."

"Oh God."
She sank back in the chair. No wonder her father had prayed for her soul every waking minute of every day. "Occasionally, I think he needs someone emotionally stronger. He frightens me sometimes and infuriates me more than anyone I've ever known. Still, at other times, despite the frustration and fear and anger, I feel this warm place in my heart and stomach . . ." Her voice trailed off and she bit her lower lip.

"That's to be expected—these motherly
feelin's
. It's the
nurturin
' part of a woman, I suppose."

"Is that what it is?" she asked with feigned brightness. "Motherly nurturing?"

"Wot else
could
it be?"

"I . . . don't know. It doesn't matter, I suppose, because in light of the hateful things I just said to His Grace I'm certain to be leaving now whether I want to or not . . . just as soon as he informs Her Grace what a despicably ill-tempered companion she's employed him."

Salterdon
remained silent as his grandmother paced the room, her brandy in one hand,
the
diamonds on the other casting flashes of brilliant light across the richly paneled walls. Only when she paused by the fire, one knotted and pale hand bracing herself against the mantle, did he meet her stern eyes and say what was on his mind, but not before taking one last look at the door through which Maria had vanished.

"I must be more weak-minded than I thought, Your Grace. I actually imagined that you would weep with delight and relief when you witnessed my vast improvement."

"Is that why you continue to glare at me and brood?" she asked. "
Need I
remind you that I'm not, nor have I ever been, witlessly sentimental."

"No." He looked away. "You needn't remind me."

"You must know how pleased I am, if not surprised. It seems that Miss Ashton has managed to accomplish miracles since her arrival to Thorn Rose."

"She's . . ." He searched for the word, the phrase to describe the woman who, just minutes before, had verbally clawed his eyes out . . . the same woman who, the night before, had danced in joy, barefoot and in her nightgown, around the music room floor as he clumsily plunked out a tune on the tuneless pianoforte. ". . .
a
dichotomy of emotion," he finally said.

"An understatement."
She looked at the glass of port he held in one hand and waited for him to drink. Carefully, he lifted it to his mouth, drank, felt the liquor slide like fire down the back of his throat. He squeezed his eyes closed until the inferno eased to that oozing, ember-like heat in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to cough, but would not. That, of course, would be a sign of weakness, and if the duchess looked down on anything, it was weakness.

"You look well enough, considering," she said. "A bit thin, perhaps, and
ruffianly
. Why you've chosen to grow your hair in such a manner is a mystery; you look more like your brother now than you ever did. No doubt you'll be digging furrows with your bare hands and sowing cabbages for your tenants."